Various aspects of the present disclosure relate generally to mainframe systems and more particularly to running batch jobs on a mainframe system.
In order to batch-test applications or start a subsystem of a mainframe system, a user writes code in a job control language (JCL) to create a JCL card that is used to instruct the mainframe system to perform a job. The job includes several steps, with each step representing one specific program. For example, a simple copy function may include six separate steps. There are two lineages of JCL: DOS/360 (e.g., z/VSE) and OS/360 (e.g., primary control program (PCP)). While both lineages have actual implementation differences, they share some basic syntax rules and a few basic concepts.